Barack Obama Quotes

Hillary Clinton follows a cardinal rule in politics - don't commit to a decision before you have to.

Politics isn't that difficult; it is about finding your conscience again. So, just do what is right.

I tend to solicit opinions from all those around me. I like to hear opinions and the rationale behind it from everybody in the room. Perhaps it's the result of going to law school and using the Socratic method.

I don't think I would move into politics, but our job is often about pulling things down. It's about why something won't work, which I think is valuable, but it's not always constructive.

My view is that politics should be on the basis of issues.

Congress is a place that lacks any debate of ideas.

Dozens of Democrats appear on Fox News each month. If it were not worth their time and energy to debate, converse and display their experience and governing styles to millions of voters who happen to watch Fox News, wouldn't they all just line up at others' broadcast booths on Capitol Hill?

I like debating policy.

I think those who have followed my political life would have known that I don't believe in just blind loyalty.

If you're going to talk about politics, then there are going to be folks who are with you and folks that are against you.

The speed of decision making is the essence of good governance.

Politicians have an arrogance that I just do not understand. I've seen more constructive debates in high school.

You don't have to agree with my vote, but you need to at least understand how I came to my vote.

As a politician, I should expect sharp challenge from those who disagree with my decisions.

People who are great at making decisions in the face of uncertainty have great judgment.

I know the difference between right and wrong, and I can tell good from bad. But I also know that the more difficult decisions come when we have to choose between good and better. The toughest calls of all are those we have to make between bad and worse.

We may make mistakes-but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.

The mistake that the Bush administration should admit to is not so much that they made the wrong choices. They made the right analysis; they made the right choices. But what they did wrong was the execution of those choices. That was wrong.

These two rational faculties may be designated the Scientific Faculty and the Calculative Faculty respectively; since calculation is the same as deliberation, and deliberation is never exercised about things that are invariable, so that the Calculative Faculty is a separate part of the rational half of the soul.

Usually, I'm pretty good about sorting through the options and then making decisions that I'm confident are the best decisions in that moment, given the information we have. But there are times where I think I wish I could have imagined a different level of insight.

The most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question.

Decision making is the specific executive task.

The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes.

A president must make decisions based upon principle and stand by the principles by which he makes decisions in order to achieve peace.

I think the political process has degenerated into name-calling and extremism, and I think that that's unfortunate.